Prior art content-addressable storage applications return a unique identifier to the managing application (or user) in exchange for receiving and storing a digital object (such as a computer file). Typically, this unique identifier is the result of a hash function performed on the contents of the digital object (such as a lengthy hexadecimal string) or is a unique random number associated with that digital object. It is then up to the managing application (or user) to decide what to do with that unique identifier: where to store it, how to maintain it, and how to retrieve it when the digital object stored in the content-addressable storage must be retrieved.
Needless to say, keeping track of a 128-bit (for example) unique identifier can be difficult for a user and problematic for a managing application accustomed to using its own pathname scheme. Moreover, various applications may wish to reference digital objects in storage using different pathname schemes, but cannot. And, different applications desiring to share and access the same digital object cannot do so without each managing a lengthy hexadecimal string.
Furthermore, while many techniques exist for backing up computer files and reverting to prior states in a computer system, most only provide a prior state at discrete times. For example, the “Time Machine” feature available on computers from Apple, Inc. automatically makes incremental backups every hour—copying just the files that have changed since the last backup. But, this type of backup is only available at discrete checkpoints (every hour); it is not possible to determine the state of the computer system between hours if files have been changing.
Currently, many specific namespaces exist such as: DNS that maps host names to IP addresses; file systems that map pathnames to individual files; e-mail systems that map e-mail addresses to individual electronic mailboxes; and Web servers that map Universal Resource Locators (URLs) and Universal Resource Identifiers (URIs) to Internet content. Unfortunately, none of these prior art namespaces address the problems identified above and an improved namespace and techniques are desired.